Chapter 3 Warehouse

The weight of a grown man crashed onto the young girl’s shoulders.

Mo Chu no longer possessed the strength and endurance she had honed over six years in her previous life. She stumbled instinctively under the burden, but still held tightly onto Li Chen.

Then the pair of limp hands hanging weakly in front of her slowly lifted and closed around hers.

Mo Chu turned back in surprise. “You’re awake.”

With the blood splattered across his face, Li Chen looked even paler than before. But the moment he opened his eyes, the weakness seemed to vanish completely. In that instant, he was once again the same formidable Li Chen she remembered.

“Put me down,” he said quietly.

Mo Chu obeyed almost without thinking. The moment his feet touched the ground, she grabbed hold of his arm to steady him.

He was badly injured, yet he stood astonishingly firm.

Beside them, Chu Ming’s expression darkened abruptly.

Li Chen didn’t spare him even a glance. “Let’s go.”

Even though she knew Li Chen wouldn’t die so easily, seeing him conscious again still made the tight knot in Mo Chu’s chest loosen. It felt as though a massive stone had finally fallen away from her heart.

She tightened her grip around his arm and nodded hard.

The city streets were mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, yet the backs of the man and woman walking through them looked strangely resolute—one calm, one unwavering.

Chu Ming watched them from behind, and the sight stabbed at his eyes.

The woman he wanted had chosen to leave with a piece of trash.

For a moment, it felt as though he’d been dragged back into the past. Ever since childhood, everything he wanted, everything he set his sights on, had ended up belonging to Li Chen. Every person he desperately tried to approach eventually gathered around Li Chen instead. If Li Chen wanted first place, then Chu Ming could only ever be second.

It had always been that way.

But the apocalypse was wonderful, wasn’t it?

He had awakened an ability. In this world overrun by monsters, that made him strong. And Li Chen—no matter how powerful he once was—was nothing but a cripple without powers.

For the first time in his life, Chu Ming felt like he had finally trampled Li Chen beneath his feet.

But this useless man, who hadn’t even awakened an ability, still looked at him with the same old gaze—as though Chu Ming were still that incompetent shadow forever relying on him.

Even now.

Even now, when he was about to die.

About to die by Chu Ming’s own hand.

Betrayed by the brother he trusted.

And yet Li Chen still regarded him as though he were nothing at all, as though he had never once been worthy of entering his eyes.

The woman Chu Ming wanted would rather save a cripple and leave with a cripple than stay by his side.

As though he were still the weak one.

No.

He had awakened an ability now.

He was strong.

The muscles in Chu Ming’s cheeks twitched violently. Staring at Li Chen’s back, he said viciously, “Li Chen, I’ll be waiting for news of your death.”

Li Chen paused slightly and glanced back at him.

“We’ll meet again,” he said lightly.

The words sounded almost like a curse.

Chu Ming sneered, then looked at Mo Chu with a strangely feverish expression. His voice turned soft and sticky.

“A’Chu… I’ll wait for the day you come back begging me.”

Mo Chu instinctively wanted to turn around, but Li Chen gently pressed down on her head.

This man—who had once been synonymous with “devil” in her previous life—said flatly, “Don’t look. It’ll hurt your eyes.”

Mo Chu froze.

Then suddenly, despite everything, she almost wanted to laugh.

The suffocating tension in her chest eased a little. She nodded and said softly, “Let’s go.”

The man and woman supported each other as they disappeared from everyone’s sight.

…

The moment Mo Chu decided to leave with Li Chen, she had already begun deliberately stalling for time, waiting until their vehicle finally drove out of the zombie-infested district.

She wanted to take Li Chen away.

She just didn’t want them to die the second they stepped out of the car.

Fortunately, Chu Ming had been too enraged by her words to notice her intentions.

Still, she didn’t dare gamble on whether he might suddenly regret letting them go and decide to finish Li Chen off halfway through. So she relied on the city’s maze-like streets to escape their line of sight as quickly as possible.

The instant they disappeared from view, Li Chen collapsed.

Only then did Mo Chu realize he had been forcing himself to stay standing the entire time.

She didn’t dare treat him there. Instead, she helped him sit down and quickly surveyed their surroundings.

They were inside a narrow alley flanked by tall buildings. Several windows above stood wide open. Any infected resident lurking inside could catch the scent of blood and leap down at any moment.

It was far too dangerous.

While scouting the area, Mo Chu suddenly spotted a zombie leaning out from a second-floor window nearby, drawn by the smell of blood. Luckily, the metal bars outside the window snagged it for a second, giving her enough time to react.

Using the dagger she had taken from Li Chen, she drove the blade straight through its head.

At this stage, zombies were only stronger than ordinary people. As long as they weren’t gathered in hordes, even normal humans could deal with them. The problem was that most people’s first reaction upon seeing a zombie was fear and panic.

And once they started running, they became prey.

But once the zombies evolved…

Ordinary people wouldn’t even have the chance to escape.

Mo Chu failed to find a crystal core inside the zombie’s skull, but she didn’t care. After quickly memorizing the surrounding terrain, she helped Li Chen back to his feet and guided him out of the alley.

Across the street stood a large shopping mall. Behind it was a small one-story warehouse connected to the mall by a single door.

That was where she planned to go.

On the fifth day of the apocalypse, residential buildings once packed with families and office towers once filled with white-collar workers had all become paradise for zombies. Entering one of those buildings was the same as walking into a nest of monsters.

You never knew whether the door at the end of the hallway hid living survivors—

or an entire room full of zombies.

In comparison, isolated warehouses with fewer people were much safer.

Along the way, at least five or six zombies were drawn toward them by the scent of Li Chen’s blood. Mo Chu’s current body still lacked strength, but she had a weapon in hand and six years of experience dealing with the undead.

So despite several close calls, she made it through safely.

Out of those six zombies, she managed to dig out one crystal core.

Looking at the tiny crystal in her palm, she knew this was the key to growing stronger as quickly as possible.

At the beginning of the apocalypse, the first wave of ability users had no idea crystal cores even existed. It would take over half a month before people gradually discovered their uses, and by then, crystal cores would become more precious than food or water.

But in her previous life, Mo Chu had possessed a so-called “useless” ability. Someone like her had never had access to resources like these.

Now, however, zombies and corpses littered the streets everywhere.

This was her chance.

Healing-type ability users lacked effective offensive power, but their physical abilities still surpassed ordinary humans. With enough training, they weren’t truly helpless.

At the very least, before awakening her powers, there was no way Mo Chu could have carried a nearly unconscious man close to one hundred ninety centimeters tall and weighing almost eighty kilograms all this distance.

But now, even though she struggled, she still managed to bring Li Chen safely to the warehouse.

The warehouse doors stood wide open. It had obviously already been looted once before. Most of the food and water were gone, leaving behind only puffed snacks, small junk foods too inconvenient to carry, unopened clothing packages, and miscellaneous items.

Fortunately, there were no zombies inside.

Mo Chu wasn’t too disappointed.

She laid Li Chen onto an unopened mattress and immediately checked his condition.

Before the apocalypse, Mo Chu had been a medical student. She could tell his external wounds weren’t fatal—none had damaged a major artery.

But a faint grayness had already spread across his face.

A symptom of zombie virus infection.

Mo Chu’s heart sank heavily.

He hadn’t been bitten by a single zombie.

He had been swarmed by an entire horde.

The infection ability of the zombie virus was terrifying. Even a tiny scratch from a zombie’s claws could infect someone. Looking at the extent of Li Chen’s injuries, if she didn’t already know he would survive this in her previous life—and even awaken an overwhelmingly powerful ability afterward—she would have thought his death was certain.

For anyone else, these wounds would have been a death sentence.

What exactly had he endured back then to survive it?

Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been anything worth remembering.

Mo Chu took a deep breath, draped a coat over him, then quickly shut the warehouse doors. After that, she found unopened rolls of tape and sealed every window inside except the main entrance, making sure not a trace of blood scent could escape.

At this stage, zombies had no eyesight.

They hunted entirely through sound and the smell of blood.

Under those conditions, Mo Chu had to avoid attracting them at all costs.

After finishing everything, she searched through the warehouse again, but found neither medicine nor bandages.

Just as expected.

Letting out a soft sigh, she walked back to Li Chen, loosened his clothes, and began using her weak healing ability on his wounds.

She couldn’t heal the large injuries.

Healing the smaller wounds barely made a difference.

It was nothing more than a drop in the ocean.

As long as the zombie virus remained inside him, everything she did was useless.

After more than ten minutes, Mo Chu was forced to stop. She could already feel her ability nearing exhaustion.

In their current situation, completely draining her powers was the last thing she could afford.

Yet perhaps her healing had still done something, because the moment she withdrew her hand, Li Chen slowly woke up.

Joy flashed through her chest. She hurriedly uncapped a bottle of water she had scavenged from some hidden corner and brought it to his lips.

Li Chen turned his head away.

Mo Chu froze. “…Li Chen?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. His voice was so faint it was almost inaudible.

“Don’t waste it on me.”

Mo Chu frowned. “How is this a waste?”

Li Chen didn’t answer.

He looked like he was in terrible pain. His brows remained tightly furrowed, and even his breathing had become weak.

“You should leave,” he murmured. “I’ve already been infected.”

From his tone to his expression, everything was calm.

As though he had already accepted being abandoned.

In that instant, Mo Chu remembered her previous life.

Remembered the version of herself who had followed Chu Ming and the others away.

Back then, she had spent years deliberately forcing herself to forget those memories. Later, when she heard that Li Chen had reappeared and slaughtered the special operations team Chu Ming belonged to, she had quietly waited for his revenge to come for her too.

But it never did.

The moment she watched Li Chen get pushed down and chose compromise over resistance, it had become the first step in her surrender to fate.

But this time—

she didn’t want to surrender anymore.

And she didn’t want to abandon Li Chen either.

She simply raised the water bottle back to his lips and said, “Drink.”

Li Chen looked at her for a long moment.

“Why?” he asked softly.

Mo Chu wanted to say:

Because I want to thank you.

Thank you for saving me so many times.

Thank you for loving me.

But in the end, she only repeated herself.

“Drink.”

Li Chen fell silent for a moment before saying, “Find some rope and tie me up. If I fully turn… kill me.”

Mo Chu bit down hard on her lip. Then she searched through the warehouse and found a thick hemp rope used for securing cargo.

She tied him up.

“If I become a zombie,” Li Chen said quietly, “kill me.”

“You’ll survive this,” Mo Chu said immediately. “You definitely will.”

Li Chen said nothing more.

A moment later, he lost consciousness again.

That night, his fever began to rise.